


Click

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 02:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19984465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: The Avenger's spoil Kilgrave's fun, and he's happy to put a pause on his quest for world domination to express his displeasure. And then things get very loud.





	Click

**Author's Note:**

> This story originated as a prompt from @musicalluna on Tumblr for my 2015 Stony Bingo card. You can find the original post here: https://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/post/133677914100/click-12

A single lightbulb swung wildly above them, casting mad shadows along the floor and giving the nauseating impression of spinning. The muscles in Steve’s legs jumped and spasmed, twisting into tight knots, screaming at him to move, but his hips remained planted to the seat. Across a small table, Tony stared at him with wild eyes. His lips compressed into a tight line.

“Leave,” he snarled. The words fought across his tongue and his teeth almost bit them off. He sounded more animal than man, mad with anger and fear. “Leave. Go.”

“I can’t,” Steve said. He started to shake, body wracked with shivers that had nothing to do with the cold. His eyes rolled upward and to the left. “You don’t have to do this. Please.”

Staring at him, unblinking, Tony held a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum revolver with a laser sight. The gun trembled in his hand, the red laser cutting through the surrounding darkness like a macabre light show. His elbow was braced against the table, wrist twisted at an odd angle to keep the muzzle pointed approximately at Steve’s chest. His jaw clenched.

“Please go.”

“I can’t.”

“ _Steve –_ ” Tony clenched his teeth, his face going red with strain. Underneath him, the chair creaked and scraped along the concrete floor. The gun jumped and re-centered on Steve’s chest.

Steve sucked in a breath. It whistled past the blockage in his throat, filled up the hollow, hurting places in his chest. On his left side, three broken ribs protested the movement with sharp bites. He concentrated on the pain, pulled in another deep breath, tried to ignore Tony’s shaking hand, tried to keep his eyes locked on Tony’s face and not on the gun. His lips were dry and they drew apart reluctantly. “Look at me, Tony. We can get through this together.”

A small noise tore out of Tony’s chest, wounded and helpless. His free hand moved jerkily over the table, twitching and scrabbling at the rough wood, inching closer to his bent elbow. The gun swayed drunkenly, briefly blinding Steve with the laser. He winced and looked away, small pops of light exploding behind his eyelids. Across the table, Tony screamed, a horrible sound that was more than half rage, mixed liberally with denial and naked fear.

 _Click_.

“ _Oh God,_ ” Tony moaned as the firing mechanism snapped on an empty chamber and cycled to the next.

Steve let his breath out in a gasp of relief. His spine felt liquid in the wake of that dry, sharp sound, his guts twisting. “I’m fine, it’s okay,” he stammered.

Across the table, Tony sobbed, wide eyes filling with moisture that spilled down his cheeks and made the blood and dirt run. He shifted in the chair, trying in vain to push away from the table.

“Why don’t you spin the cylinder, Mr. Stark?” a soft voice suggested from the darkness. Steve’s eyes flashed over to the darkened corner. His quads bunched and he managed to lift himself an inch and a half off the chair, hands planted on the table while Tony’s nails scraped across the surface and the gun chittered as it shook.

“Sit down, Captain Rogers!” the voice snapped. Pain cracked down Steve’s spine and his ass slammed back into the seat hard enough to make the chair rock. Clenching his jaw, he tried again, but he couldn’t convince his legs to take his weight. The chair shuffled a quarter of an inch backwards.

Nearly hyperventilating with effort, Tony reached up and thumbed the cylinder latch off. A twist of his wrist dumped the cylinder out of the body of the gun, and he stared at the chambers. Only one was loaded, the bullet bright and menacing as it caught the light. Steve tried to catch Tony’s eyes, to get his gaze away from the bullet, but Tony remained fixated on it.

“Spin it and flick it closed,” Kilgrave said almost sweetly, “Just like in the movies.”

Nails leaving gouges in the wood, Tony lifted his hand and spun the cylinder with a twitch. His shooting hand moved more smoothly, jerking the gun over so the cylinder clattered home. The stop hand locked into a notch and Tony let out a shaky breath. His shoulders relaxed once he’d fulfilled the order and he shuddered.

In the darkness, Kilgrave moved around the table. His silk suit whispered as he walked, and Steve could smell his expensive cologne as he drew closer. It was a flowery, thick scent that clung to the back of Steve’s throat. He smiled at Steve, one hand extending slowly to broadcast his intent. Tony snarled and bucked in the chair, managing to shove the table an inch away from him. Steve gripped it and tried not to react when Kilgrave’s chilly fingertips set to his cheek, but he couldn’t help a shudder. His skin was disturbingly soft and tinted just slightly lavender under the yellow light. He dragged his fingers across Steve’s cheek to his ear, and then down the line of his neck to his shoulder, where he flattened his hand. Moving to stand directly behind Steve’s chair, he leaned forward slightly so his stomach pressed into the back of Steve’s head, jacket falling open to envelope Steve in his scent. He set his other hand down on Steve’s opposite shoulder, and Steve didn’t flinch again.

Locking gazes with Tony, Steve breathed slowly through his mouth and made himself be calm, be stone. He’d faced down the Red Skull from his knees, he could manage this.

“Take. Your hands. Off of him,” Tony said in a low, growling voice.

“I will,” Kilgrave promised. He sounded very reasonable. “Just put that cute little red dot…” The fingers of his right hand walked down Steve’s chest to rest over his heart. “Right here.”

The laser disappeared from Steve’s line of sight, but he didn’t need to be able to see it to trace the trajectory of the muzzle. Tony started cussing. Loud, snarling, vicious curses poured out in a dozen languages. He insulted Kilgrave’s manhood, mother, and sanity in a long string of creative expletives. His eyes were red with fatigue and tears, and his face was deep red with the blood pounding through his cheeks.

Kilgrave stepped away, heels clicking on the concrete. Tony ran out of breath and struggled not to draw in more air. He was trying to make himself pass out, his chest shuddering with increasingly frantic efforts to pull in oxygen. Steve felt sick watching him do it, but he couldn’t take his eyes away. He clenched his jaw shut.

“Not that your body will let you, but if you pass out, I’ll just give the gun to your sweetheart and ask him to put a bullet in your skull,” Kilgrave noted. “Of course, you wouldn’t care anymore, being dead, but I think I would let him go after that. I think I would tell him to go sit on the edge of his bed and just think about what he’d done.”

Tony sucked in a loud breath, and another, his pulse visibly jumping in his throat. “You sick purple piece of shit, I am going to _disembowel you_ ,” Tony promised in a scarily steady voice.

Steve, holding back the heaviness in his chest, murmured, “Language.”

Tony’s eyes jerked over to him, shocked out of his spiraling panic. “Seriously?” he asked.

“Pull the trigger,” Kilgrave snapped, obviously and immediately angry that they’d taken their attention away from him.

Tony’s finger, resting on the outside of the trigger guard, tugged in. Steve’s eyes flickered down and back up while Tony’s knuckle went white with the effort to pull the trigger through the guard. Annoyed, Kilgrave amended, “Put your finger on the trigger, and pull it!”

Gritting his teeth, Tony replied, “Bite me!” but his finger moved, slipped into the guard, and tugged.

 _Click_.

Steve didn’t realize he’d squeezed his eyes shut until they cracked open. A full-body convulsion nearly threw him out of the chair. His knee thumped up against the leg of the table and the table jerked marginally to the side.

“Again.”

“ _Fuck you_ -!”

 _Click_.

He snapped his jaw shut and met Steve’s eyes. “Run, please, run. You’re so much stronger than this asshole, Steve. Please.” The tears traced worn paths through the grime on his cheeks. His eyes flickered down. Steve followed his gaze. He couldn’t see the bullet in any of the four exposed chambers. It was either ready to fire, or in the chamber directly opposite, three clicks away.

“It’s okay,” Steve said softly. As long as the bullet didn’t tear through his heart or hit an artery, there was a good chance he would survive it. Tony had managed to move the muzzle to point just slightly left of Steve’s heart. If he held it steady, the bullet would pass upward through Steve’s third and fourth ribs, and probably puncture his lung. It would be painful, but he could survive it if he got help. Once Tony shot him, he would be freed from the compulsion until Kilgrave issued another command. It might only be seconds, but there were still five bullets scattered on the floor and Tony was fast, and strong. He might be able to hold out long enough. “It’s okay,” he said again.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Kilgrave asked with a certain breathlessness to his voice that made Steve sick. He was enjoying the show, getting off on it. “People don’t get to take things from me for free, Mr. Stark. I hope you see that now.”

Steve felt the pressure on his spine ease marginally as Kilgrave focused his attention on Tony. It was barely noticeable, but there. He forced himself to relax, let all the tension out of his limbs. Behind Tony, Kilgrave kept talking, but Tony wasn’t listening. His eyes sharpened on Steve’s chest, noticing the release of tension instantly. His gaze flickered up, and Steve glanced down to the right corner of the table where his knee was still lodged against the leg. Tony didn’t follow his gaze. He swallowed hard and shivered.

“Now, Mr. Stark… Pull the trigger.” Tony’s body rang with tension but his hand held steady, removing the variable of a wild gun. Steve could _feel_ Kilgrave’s power pouring into Tony like the hum of a distance bass guitar. His feet tingled. He blinked twice. Tony’s eyes met his and Steve could see the terrible trust there, knew what he was asking Tony, and the price Tony would pay if they failed. Tony’s finger tightened, and Steve summoned up every ounce of rage he had in him. Kilgrave was just another bully, someone throwing around their weight because they could, and Steve _hated him_.

The air seemed to sing and the world took on a strange, almost liquid quality. It happened faster than an eye could blink, but to Steve it seemed like minutes, hours. His muscles responded like they were fighting against steel bindings, but he’d bent steel before. He tossed all of his weight against the leg of the table, jerking sideways as he did.

He felt the impact first, a sharp sting just below his collarbone, followed instantly by an explosion of alarmed heat. As if everything had turned upside-down, he heard the shot after he felt it, echoing in loud claps around the empty warehouse. The chair turned over and he spilled onto the floor, striking his head hard on the concrete. Everything swam in drunken circles as he rolled backwards and onto his feet. Distantly, he heard Kilgrave screaming, incoherent with rage, and then a high pitched blast of noise that overwhelmed Steve with instant nausea. He doubled over and dropped to his knees, dry heaving, the pain of his broken ribs barely noticeable over the fire in his chest and the screaming in his head. It didn’t help, but Steve covered his ears and tried to find Tony in the chaos of the jumping shadows and the shriek of noise. He found Kilgrave on his knees a few feet away, elbows up by his ears, mouth moving, but inaudible over the noise.

Steve understood what had happened an instant before familiar hands closed over his. Bucky pried Steve’s hands away from his ears and Sam dropped to his knees in front of him with a pair of bulky headphones. He shoved them over Steve’s ears and the screaming abruptly cut off. His ears continued to ring like they’d been filled with cicadas, but he couldn’t hear the sonic tone anymore.

“Tony?” he gasped out. He could feel his lips moving but he couldn’t hear his own voice. It was disconcerting and he tried again, screaming Tony’s name. Bucky put a hand over his mouth to stop him and Sam pointed across the room. Rhodey had Tony in a bear hug, but Tony didn’t seem to notice. He thrashed like a wildcat, face wet with tears, mouth open in a scream that Steve could feel in his chest but couldn’t hear. He was lunging at Kilgrave, feet shoved against War Machine’s thighs so his back bowed at an alarming angle, tossing his weight side-to-side in an effort to get free. Steve had seen Tony angry before. Angry Tony went quiet, cold. Angry Tony contained his rage and channeled it into controlled destruction. Angry Tony fixed things. He’d never seen Tony handle anger like this, as if he was two seconds away from his own Hulk transformation.

Natasha had Kilgrave in a full body bind, her thighs wrapped around his upper legs, arms pulling his elbows back. He jerked his head while Clint struggled to get a muzzle on him. Bucky hauled Steve to his feet and Sam got under his other arm. They dragged him into Tony’s line of sight, Bucky waving a flashlight to get his attention. Tony froze, body trembling with tension, staring at Steve with disbelieving, wide eyes.

Struggling out of Bucky’s grip, Steve stumbled the last feet to Tony’s side, reaching up to put a hand on his face. Tony went limp in Rhodey’s arms, and Rhodey finally let him go. Steve caught him with his good arm, but Tony didn’t fold into him. He snatched the flashlight away from Bucky and shined it on Steve’s chest. Steve looked down to see all the blood soaking through his torn uniform. He grabbed Tony’s hand and pushed his fingers into the bullet wound to help him find it amidst the mess of torn, bloody material. Throbbing heat radiated out from the contact and Tony jerked his hand away immediately. He took the bandage that Sam offered and pressed it over the leaking wound. Steve put his hand over Tony’s, but he didn’t try to hold him when Tony slipped away from him, leaving the bandage behind. Turning enough that he could see Steve, Kilgrave, and Rhodey, he held out his hands. Rhodey, secure behind the War Machine helmet, did nothing. Tony gestured to his wrist with a tightly controlled jerk of his fingers, and Rhodey shook his head. Tony wanted his Iron Man bracelets and Rhodey either didn’t have them or wasn’t giving them up.

Rhodey pointed the way out. Tony shook his head. Sam pushed gently at Steve’s hip, avoiding his injuries while trying to get him to move. Steve shook his head. He stood side-by-side with Tony while Kilgrave was muzzled, sedated, and bound. Clint had given him a set of the noise-canceling headphones as well and Steve felt a sick flash of anger at the gesture. He clenched his fist so tightly around the bandage that he twisted the open wound beneath. Sam tried to get him to leave again and Steve stubbornly shook his head.

Only once Kilgrave was thoroughly bound and under anesthesia did Clint deactivate the sonic device attached to an arrow partially embedded in the table. He must have shot it through the skylight and then repelled in after it. As a safety measure, they kept the headphones on while Kilgrave was loaded into a sound-proofed box in the back of a reinforced semi-truck. Rhodey locked it and then flicked his faceplate up. Steve gratefully pulled the headphones off, though he left them down around his neck. 

“Give them to me.”

“I don’t have them,” Rhodey said stubbornly.

“You’re a bad liar,” Tony snapped. “We are not moving that…” His teeth bared in an ugly snarl. He drew in a breath and calmed himself. “Kilgrave could have lackeys watching this place, already in place in case he’s captured. We need all the air support we can get.”

It was a fair point, but Tony wasn’t in good condition after the protracted fight with Kilgrave’s army of innocent puppets. Kilgrave had drawn Tony away and then surrounded him with a hundred civilians holding guns to their heads. Steve had arrived just as Tony stepped out of the suit, and had to watch as Tony’s eyes flashed violet and he was snared in Kilgrave’s control. Tony lifelessly lifting a gun to his own head had Steve taking his earpieces out, and that was that. Over the intervening hours, they’d been forced to fight their own teammates, and help a very annoyed Kilgrave escape the city. Neither of them had slept in at least forty hours, and putting Tony back into the suit would be a definite risk.

Tony and Rhodey squared off in an intense stare down. Steve knew he should intervene, but his head was pounding, his legs felt shaky, and he mostly just wanted to go throw up, and then sleep. He felt Sam’s hands on him, trying to pull the bandage away, Bucky’s arm around his hips just barely keeping him upright.

“Give it to him, War Machine,” Steve said finally. Rhodey looked at him sharply, eyes narrowed in calculation. Steve wasn’t really in the best condition to be giving orders and Rhodey knew it. “Iron Man is right, we need the air support. The sooner we get Kilgrave away from people, the better. We don’t have time to argue. Iron Man, scout ahead and keep an eye on the roads. I’m assuming SHIELD has a holding facility set up?”

Natasha nodded and Rhodey stiffy opened a panel over his chest. Tony didn’t wait for him to retrieve the bracelets, but reached in himself and pulled them out. He snapped them over his wrists, but then gave Steve an uncertain look.

“Go,” Steve said, “I’ll be right behind you.”

Tony had his arms held out from his body in preparation for the suit, but he kept his eyes on Steve’s face, expression so carefully blank that Steve knew he was on the verge of breaking.

“See you at home.”

The left gauntlet arrived and Tony nodded once. He turned to face the rest of the suit as at came in more-or-less in one piece. The right gauntlet folded around him, and Tony lifted himself off the ground enough for the boots to fit to his feet. The rest of the suit encased him in a smooth movement and he hovered over the street for a slow three count before firing up into the clouds. Without a word, Rhodey snapped the faceplate down and followed.

“What’s the likelihood that Stark’s gonna tear through the truck and kill that purple bastard?” Clint asked idly.

“None,” Steve answered.

“Death is too good for him,” Bucky added in a chilly drawl. With Tony out of eyeshot, Steve finally let Sam drag him over to the armored follow truck. It was an ambulance that had been refitted in black armor plates, but the interior was much the same. Sam followed him into the back while Bucky and Natasha climbed into the big rig, and Clint took the wheel of the truck. Bruce waited inside with a pair of gloves on and a triage kit rolled out beside him, looking decidedly nervous. Steve was distantly angry that they’d brought Bruce within potential striking distance of Kilgrave. The thought of the Hulk under Kilgrave’s control would be enough to give Steve nightmares for decades, but he was just too tired. Bruce gave him a look that crossed somewhere between stubborn resolve and apology. Steve didn’t say anything. He sat down as directed and let Sam cut his uniform away. He tried very hard not to think about Tony with tears in his eyes and a .44 aimed at his chest.

He wasn’t successful, but at least Sam and Bruce didn’t try to make him talk.

**Author's Note:**

> This one is technically still a WiP, so no guarentees on when I'll get to part 2, but let me know what you think.
> 
> Come visit me on Tumblr: https://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/


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